Dive Programme 2019 Introduction Welcome to your new dive programme. In 2019 Clidive has a packed plan with about 80 days of amazing diving. As always we’re mainly diving in the UK as it’s the best in the world. Clidive will be diving all over, offering fantastic variety and choice. You can dive with us on week-long expeditions to Handa Island (NW Scotland), Scapa Flow (Orkney) and Normandy (France). You can join long weekends to Pembrokeshire, St Abbs, Plymouth and the Lake District. We will be diving the finest reefs in Plymouth, deep wrecks out of Dover, the forgotten wrecks of Plymouth and exploring Swanage. We will even be snorkelling with blue sharks! We will be heading further afield too, with trips to Croatia, Budapest, Sardinia and the Andaman Islands. We offer something for everyone. All through the dive season there are trips open to all, including divers new to UK diving. For more experienced divers, our expeditionary week-long trips offer adventurous diving to remote and beautiful places. We're offering specialist trips for deeper wreck or reef diving and plenty of training opportunities for everyone. Great value Clidive trips and training are great value because we're a club and everything is run by volunteers who give their time for free. Diving from our two high spec RIBs costs just £30 a day, half what it costs on commercial boats but we make no compromises on dive quality or distance. If the weather is good enough a Clidive boat will always be well offshore doing the best sites possible. Few, if any, other clubs take their boats to dive the exciting remote offshore sites that we regularly dive. We block book accommodation and use self-catering where possible to keep the prices low. Kit hire is just £3 an item or £10 for full kit hire per day. A trip to Handa Island this year will cost £550 including diving, accommodation, food and air! It's impossible to find a week-long diving holiday for less. You'd be mad not to book on at least one! Contents Introduction.........................................................................1 What's on offer?.......................................................................................................................................................................2 Training and preparing for the season.....................................................................................................................................4 Dive plan..................................................................................................................................................................................5 Dive plan continued.................................................................................................................................................................6 Which dive trips are right for me?...........................................................................................................................................7 How to book.............................................................................................................................................................................8 Small print................................................................................................................................................................................8 Training programme................................................................................................................................................................9 1 What's on offer? Clidive expeditions Week-long expeditions let you really explore a place in depth. It’s some of the best diving you can do. We take you to places other divers don't get to dive. All these expeditions take place from our RIBs. • Handa Island – Explore the dramatic walls and pinnacles, teaming with Atlantic life. A new location for Clidive with so much to discover! • Scapa Flow – Dive the massive wrecks of the German High Seas Fleet in the centenary of their sinking. Both fun and project diving. • Normandy – 75 years after Operation Overlord, dive the wrecks of the famous Allied invasion. Both poignant and adventurous. Expeditions are open to experienced Sports Divers (SD+). If you're not a Sports Diver this is easily fixed. Book on the Sports Diver course, starting in February and the Croatia training trip, then build up your experience on weekend trips. Chat to the Diving Officer to put a plan together to get ready for the summer. Expeditionary trips fill up very quickly so book now to avoid disappointment! Speciality diving and snorkelling We're offering a few trips aiming to do specific types of diving. • Lake District, 12-14 October – After the success of last year’s weekend we’ll be refining the location and making the most of our hard-won knowledge to make this something truly breathtaking! This will be suitable for Sports Divers and above who don't mind a bit of hiking! • Deep Wrecks Dover, 15-16 June – For experienced Sports Divers diving wrecks in the 30-35m range. Dover is renowned for its wreck diving, so this is a real must for all wreckies! • Plymouth’s forgotten wrecks, 7-8 September – This will be exploring the cream of Plymouth’s wrecks, specifically focussing on those that we don’t tend to visit on a bank holiday weekend. This is suitable for all Sports Divers depth progressed to 30m. • Plymouth reefs and sharks, 10-12 August – Aiming to visit the less frequented reefs including the legendary deep walls of Hatt Rock. This trip is suitable for all Sports Divers depth progressed to 30m. After diving from our RIB for the weekend we’ll be onto a hard boat and heading offshore to hunt for blue sharks with the aim of snorkelling with them. This is shaping up to be a really special weekend and a must for marine life fans of all 2 kinds! Weekends and long weekends Each year we peruse the long list of fantastic UK dive sites and curate a selection of the finest for your diving pleasure. Some of these we’ve dived recently and had such a brilliant time we want to do them again this year. Others we haven't done for a few years and are itching to go back. • Winter Warmer, Plymouth, 30-31 March – Come along and get warmed up for the season with some classic Plymouth diving. Ideal for those who get withdrawal symptoms after a long winter! • St Abbs, 20-22 July – Life galore in the oldest voluntary marine reserve in the UK - cold Arctic currents and warmer currents from the south swirl together and support diverse and abundant marine life so that Arctic wolf fish can be found living side by side with Devonshire Cup corals. • Swanage, 14-15 September – Home to legendary wrecks like the Kyarra and the Fleur De Lys along with famous reefs like Old Harry and Swange Pier and special treats like the Valentine Tanks (seven WW2 experimental tanks designed to float with propellers at the rear), Swanage makes a welcome return to the programme and has something for everyone. • Pembrokeshire, 21-23 September – Puffins, sheer walls, intact wrecks and the possibility of diving the Smalls Lighthouse – Pembrokeshire has it all! Come along and be wowed at the range of life in the Skomer marine reserve, dive an adventurous drift in Jack Sound and see who can see the biggest lobster! Bank holidays Clidive's bank holiday trips combine top drawer diving with a lot of fun as we come together as a big group and do the best diving for all levels. Experienced divers love the opportunity to dive some classic sites while new divers get to explore the UK's dive meccas with people who know them like the back of their hands. This year, by popular demand, we'll be heading off to Plymouth for all four bank holidays. Plymouth is home to classic wrecks such as the James Eagan Layne, and world-class scenic dives like the Eddystone have called to divers since the very beginning of recreational diving. As the seasons change and the years go by, the diving changes, so visiting Plymouth throughout the year allows us to see that change while diving the best weekend diving the UK offers. Bank holiday trips offer something for everyone, and everyone should book at least one! 3 Abroad While Clidive loves UK diving and firmly believes it's the best in the world, in case you hadn't heard, there are also many great reasons to head abroad - other than the sun that is. This year we've got four cracking foreign trips. • Croatia, 19-27 April – A long weekend of training, followed by five days of diving. Do either or both! Wrecks, walls and reefs. For all. • Budapest, May (TBC) – Dive the caves and caverns of Budapest or the warm springs outside it. Diving available for all, training and guiding available to experienced divers in the cave sections. • South Sardinia, 27 September – 1 October – Dive the marine park of Villasimius and the WW2 wrecks of Southeastern Sardinia. Tonnes of life, stunning wrecks, Sardinian hospitality. Suitable for Sports Divers. • Andaman Islands, Feb 20 – OK, strictly this is 2020, but still. Discover the pristine reefs and terrestrial beauty of one of the dive world's best-kept secrets. Suitable for all. Training trips To support our training Clidive runs a lot of training trips. • Croatia, 19-27 April – A long weekend of training, followed by five days of diving. Do either or both! Wrecks, walls and reefs. OD and SD training available. • Stoney Cove, 20-21 July and 19-20 October – At the National Dive Centre, a large and very well equipped inland diving centre, where diving has been going on since the 1960s! OD and SD training available. • Dive Leader